“Don’t tell me,” I said. “You have a plan.”
“Of course. I always have a plan. That’s why I’m top dog of this particular dung heap. I was going to show Eleanor what I’d done to her deadbeat husband, then send her home to Daddy with her husband’s ear in a box so she could plead for enough money to save him further pain. Fathers are often more indulgent with their daughters than they are with their sons-in-law; especially when the daughters are crying.”
“My father will have you skinned for this,” Eleanor said firmly. “Marcel is family.”
Libby just shrugged. “Let him send his heavies down here if he likes, and we’ll send them back to him in pieces. No-one bothers us on our own territory. Now where was I…Oh yes, the change in plans. I will keep you and Marcel here, while Mr. Taylor goes back to Griffin Hall to beg your father for enough money to ransom your miserable lives. And Mr. Taylor had better be very persuasive, because I’m pretty sure even an immortal will die if you cut them into enough small pieces…”
“You really think you can take on the Griffin?” I said.
“He could send a whole army in here.”
“Let him,” said Libby. “Him and his kind, they know nothing about life down here. We stand together, down here. It’s dog-eat-dog, but every man against the outsider. If the Griffin turns up here mob-handed, he’ll find a real army waiting to meet him. And no-one fights dirtier than us. I guarantee you, Mr. Taylor; if the Griffin makes a fight of this, I will take out my displeasure on Eleanor and Marcel, and he’ll be able to hear their screams all the way up on Griffin Hall. And what I’ll leave of them he wouldn’t want back. So, he’ll pay up, to save the expense of a war he can’t win. He is, after all, a businessman. Just like me.”
“My father is nothing like you,” said Eleanor, and her voice cut at him like a knife. “Marcel, can you hear me, darling?”
Somehow Marcel found the strength to jerk his chin out of Libby’s hand and turn his bloody face to look at Eleanor. His voice was slow and slurred and painful.
“You shouldn’t have come here, Eleanor. The service is terrible.”
“Why did you come here?”
“They wouldn’t take my bets anywhere else. Your father saw to that. So this is all his fault, really.”
“Hush, dear,” said Eleanor. “Mr. Taylor and I will get you out of here.”
“Good,” said Marcel. “The place really has gone to the dogs.”
Libby back-handed him across the face, hard enough to send fresh blood flying through the air. Eleanor made a shocked sound. She wasn’t used to such casual brutality. I looked at Libby.
“Don’t do that again.”
Libby automatically lifted his hand to hit Marcel again, only to hesitate as something in my gaze got through to him. He flushed briefly, lowering his hand. He wasn’t used to having his wishes thwarted. He looked at the messenger goon.
“Charlie, bring the lady over here so she can get a close-up look at what we’ve done to her better half.”
The messenger grabbed Eleanor’s arm. She produced a small silver canister from somewhere and sprayed its contents in the goon’s face. He howled horribly and crashed to the floor, clawing at his eyes with both hands. I looked at Eleanor, and she smiled sweetly.
“Mace, with added holy water. Mummy gave it to me. A girl should always be prepared, she said. After all, there are times when a girl just doesn’t feel like being molested.”
“Quite right,” I said.
Libby actually growled at us, like a dog before regaining his composure. “I saw you in action, Mr. Taylor, during the Lilith War. Most impressive. But that was then, and this is now, and this is my place. Due to the nature of my business, I have found it necessary to install all kinds of protective magics here. The best money can buy. Nothing happens here that I don’t want to. Down here, in my place, there’s no-one bigger than me.”
“A gambling den, soaked in hidden magics?” I said. “I am shocked, I tell you, shocked. You’ll be telling me next your games of chance aren’t entirely on the up and up.”
“Gamblers only come here when they’ve been thrown out of everywhere else,” said Libby. “They know the odds are bent in my favour, but they can’t afford to care. And there never was a gambler who didn’t know he was good enough to beat even a rigged game. But enough of this pleasant chit-chat, Mr. Taylor. It’s time to get down to business. You keep Eleanor under control while I carve a decent-sized piece off Marcel for you to take back to the Griffin. What do you think he’d be most easily able to identify, a finger or an eye?”
“Don’t touch him,” I said. “Or there will be…consequences.”
“You’re nothing down here,” Libby said savagely.
“And just for that, I think I’ll cut something off Eleanor, too, for you to take back to her father.”
He raised his right hand to show me the scalpel in it, and smiled. The other thugs grinned and elbowed each other, anticipating a show. And I raised my hand to show them the piece of human bone I’d shown in Hecate’s Tea Room. Everyone stood very still.
“This,” I said, “is an aboriginal pointing bone. Very old, very basic magic. I point, and you die. So, who goes first?”
“This is my place,” said Libby, still smiling. “I’m protected, and you’re bluffing, Taylor.”
I stabbed the bone at Libby and muttered the Words, and he fell dead to the floor.
“Not always,” I said.
The remaining thugs looked at the dead body of their erstwhile boss, looked at me, then looked at each other. One of them knelt beside Libby and tried to find a pulse. He looked up and shook his head, and the other thugs immediately knelt and started going through Libby’s pockets. They weren’t interested in us anymore. I still covered them with the pointing bone while Eleanor produced a delicate little ladies’ knife from somewhere and cut the ropes holding Marcel to his chair. He tried to stand up and fell forward into Eleanor’s waiting arms as his legs failed him. She held him up long enough for me to get there, and together we half led, half carried him out of the cellar and up into the main room of the Roll a Dice. Noone tried to follow us.
“So you weren’t bluffing in the Tea Room,” Eleanor said as we headed for the door.
“Sort of,” I said. “I’ve never actually used the bone before. I wasn’t entirely sure it was what I thought it was. I stole it from old blind Pew, years ago.”
Eleanor looked at me. “What would you have done if it hadn’t worked?”
“Improvised,” I said.
Eleanor drove the goon’s car back to Hecate’s Tea Room, where she called for a limousine to take Marcel back to Griffin Hall. I did suggest an ambulance might be more appropriate, but Eleanor wouldn’t hear of it. He’d be safer at the Hall, and that was all that mattered. Marcel was an immortal, so he couldn’t die, and he’d heal quicker in familiar surroundings.
“And besides,” said Eleanor, “the Griffin family keeps its secrets to itself.”
The limousine arrived in a few minutes and took Marcel away. The liveried chauffeur didn’t even raise an eyebrow at Marcel’s condition. Eleanor and I went back into the Tea Room and sat down again in our private booth. The storm of gossip over our reappearance was practically deafening.
“Thanks for the help,” said Eleanor. “I could have called Daddy, but he always favours the scorched earth policy when it comes to threats against the family. And I’m not ready to lose Marcel, just yet.”
“So,” I said, “tell me about Melissa.”
Eleanor pulled a face. “You are persistent, aren’t you? I suppose I do owe you something…and unlike my dear husband, I always pay my debts. So, Melissa…I can’t tell you much about her because I don’t know much. I’m not sure anyone does, really. Melissa…is a very private, very quiet person. The kind who spends a lot of time living inside her own head. Reads a lot, studies…She does talk to Jeremiah, though don’t ask me about what. They spend a lot of time together, in private.
“I never cared much about her, to be honest. I was always more concerned with my Paul. I moved back into the Hall so I could be close to him. I wasn’t going to lose my son to the Griffin. What little I do know of Melissa is only because she and Paul have always been close. They spend a lot of time in each other’s rooms…Because they grew up together in the Hall, they see themselves as brother and sister. Though my Paul never took to Jeremiah the way Melissa did. I saw to that. I didn’t give up on my child, like William did.” She smiled wistfully. “Paul and I were very close when he was small. Now that he’s a teenager it’s all I can do to get him to come out of his room.”
“I didn’t get to meet him,” I said. “But I talked to him, through his bedroom door. He seemed…highly strung.”
Eleanor shrugged angrily. “He’s a teenager. For me, that’s so long ago I can barely remember what it was like. I try to be understanding, but…he’ll get over it. I raised Paul to be his own man, not Jeremiah’s. I just wish he’d talk to me more…”
“Do you believe Melissa was kidnapped?” I said bluntly.
“Oh yes,” said Eleanor, not hesitating for a moment.
“But it must have been done with inside help to get past all the security. Not anyone in the family. I’d know. More likely one of the servants.”
“How about Hobbes?” I said. “He seems to know everything there is to know about the Hall’s security. And he is a bit…”
“Creepy?” said Eleanor. “Damned right. Can’t stand the fellow, myself. He sneaks around, and you never hear him coming. Gives himself airs and graces, just because he’s the butler. But no…Hobbes is Jeremiah’s man, body and soul. Always has been. What bothers me is that there hasn’t been any ransom demand yet.”
“Maybe they’re still working out how much to ask for,” I said.
“Maybe. Or perhaps they believe they can find the secret of Griffin immortality by interrogating her. Or dissecting her. The fools.” She looked at me appealingly and put her hand on top of mine. “John, I might not be as close to Melissa as I should, but I still wouldn’t want anything like that to happen to her. You rescued Marcel for me. Rescue my niece. Whatever it takes.”
“Even though her return could disinherit you?” I said.
“That’s only a whim on Daddy’s part,” Eleanor said flatly. She drew her hand back from mine, but her gaze was just as steady. “He’s testing William and me, to see how we’ll react. He’ll change his mind. Or I’ll change it for him.” She smiled suddenly, like a mischievous child. “William never did understand how to work our father. He always had to go head to head, and you never get anywhere with Daddy like that. He’s had centuries to build up his stubbornness. And William…has never been strong. I know how to get Daddy to do what I want, without him ever realising that it’s my idea and not his. Which is why I have a life of my own, away from the family and the family business, and a child of my own, and poor William doesn’t.”
“There is a story,” I said carefully, “about an adult grand-child leading to the Griffin’s death…”
“No-one believes that old story!” said Eleanor, not even bothering to hide her scorn. “Or at least, no-one who matters. Do you think for one moment I’d let my Paul live in the Hall with the Griffin if I thought he was in any danger? No, that story is one of the many legends that have grown up around my family and my father, down the centuries. Most of them contradictory. I think Daddy encourages them. The more stories there are, the less chance there is that someone might discover the truth. Whatever it might be. I don’t know. I don’t think anyone does anymore, except Daddy.”
She paused, and looked at me in a thoughtful, considering way. “I find myself…drawn to you, John Taylor. You’re the first man I’ve met in a long time who genuinely doesn’t seem to give a damn about my family’s wealth, or power. Who isn’t scared shitless of my father. Do you have any idea how rare that is? Every one of my husbands all but fainted the first time I dragged them into the great man’s presence. Could it be that I’ve finally found a real man, after so many boys…?”
“I’m hard to impress,” I said. “You never met my mother…And you should remember that I’m only passing through your life, Eleanor. I have no intention of staying. I have my own life and a woman I share it with. I’m just here to do a job.”
Eleanor put her hand on top of mine again. There was a sense of pressure, not unpleasant, as though she could hold me there by force. “Are you sure I can’t tempt you, John?”
I gently but firmly pulled my hand out from under hers. “You haven’t met my Suzie. Has it ever occurred to you, Eleanor, that what you’re looking for isn’t a man, but another Daddy?”
“I am never that obvious,” said Eleanor, not insulted.
“Or that shallow.”
“I don’t have time for this,” I said, not unkindly. “I have to find Melissa, and I’m on a very tight deadline. I can’t help feeling I’m missing something…I’ve talked to everyone in your family now, except Paul. You said he and Melissa were very close. If I were to go back to the Hall, would you happen to have a spare key to his bedroom?”
“He isn’t there right now,” said Eleanor, looking away for the first time. “He has…friends he goes to see. At this club…He thinks I don’t know. If I tell you where to find him, John, you have to promise me you’ll be gentle with him. Treat him kindly. He is very precious to me.”
“I shall be politeness itself,” I said. “I can be civilised, when I have to be. There just isn’t much call for it, in my line of business.”
“You have to promise me you won’t tell anyone else,” Eleanor insisted. “People wouldn’t understand.”
I put on my most trustworthy face. Eleanor didn’t look entirely convinced, but she finally told me the name of the club, and at once I understood a lot more about Paul Griffin. I knew the club. I’d been there before.
“It’s so good to have had a real conversation, for a change,” said Eleanor, a little wistfully. “To actually talk about something that matters…” She looked out of our booth at the Ladies Who Lunch, and her gaze was not kind. “You have no idea how lonely you can feel, in the middle of a crowd, when you know you have nothing in common with any of them. Some days, I could turn my back on the family and walk away from it all. Make a new life for myself. But I couldn’t leave Paul to my father’s mercies…and besides, I don’t know how to do poor. So I guess I’ll go on being a goldfish in a bowl, swimming round and round, forever. I enjoyed meeting you, John Taylor. You’re…different.”